Tucker WilliamsUX & Product Design Leader
All work
Retail & banking · Design operations14 months

Grupo Coppel

The hiring criteria I wrote shaped Coppel's senior design hires, and the principles I led are still in its design system.

Founding member of the Digital Center of Excellence, leading the skills assessment, hiring criteria and design principles.Associate Creative Director, Experience · Publicis Sapient

Problem

Coppel's leadership wanted design work on par with the best tech companies, and set up a Digital Center of Excellence to get there. The gap had two halves: the craft of a 35-person design organization, and the structure around it.

Approach

I started with a skills-gap assessment against that bar, then rewrote most of the design organization's job descriptions around quality and mentoring, so leaders were craft experts with time to grow their teams, and hiring and promotion had clear criteria.

The assessment also surfaced a structural problem. Six phase-based pods each optimized their own part of the journey, and no one owned the handoffs between them. I validated that with product and technology counterparts first, so it reached leadership as a shared operating problem, then proposed organizing by channel, with a cross-channel guild owning the journey.

The work

Diagram: the goal of design on par with the best tech companies, split into craft and structure.
01

The goal

The gap had two halves: the team's craft, and the structure around it.

Diagram: three role principles, craft first, consultant mindset, and right-sized process.
02

Raising the bar

After a skills-gap assessment, I rewrote the job descriptions so leaders became craft experts with time to mentor, and the new criteria shaped senior hiring.

Diagram: six phase-based pods along the customer journey, with unowned handoffs between each.
03

Six pods, no one between them

Each pod optimized its own phase against its own metrics. No one owned the handoffs or the journey as a whole.

Diagram: the delivery reporting line and the outcome line, with no reporting line crossing between them.
04

Who owns what

Design reported to a director accountable for delivery. The people accountable for outcomes sat outside that line, so requirements arrived as decisions.

Diagram: four steps, surface the gap, validate sideways, reframe it, then walk it up.
05

The method

I validated the finding with product and technology counterparts first, so it reached leadership as a shared operating problem.

Diagram: six pods today versus proposed mobile, web, and kiosk teams under a cross-channel strategy guild.
06

The recommendation

Organize by channel, the way engineering already was, with a cross-channel guild owning the journey. Accepted, then deferred behind a CEO-led redesign.

Diagram: a 1.5-day workshop, five principles written by the team, presented beyond retail.
07

What lasted

I facilitated a day-and-a-half workshop where the team wrote its own five design principles. They're still in Coppel's design system.

Outcome

  • The new job descriptions were broadly agreed on, and I sat on the panel that hired senior managers against them.
  • The team wrote its own five design principles in a day-and-a-half workshop I facilitated. They're still in Coppel's design system, which credits me for leading them.
  • Leadership accepted the structural finding, but the reorganization was deferred behind a CEO-led redesign.
  • I was offered a direct role at Coppel.

My role

I joined the Digital Center of Excellence as a founding member. Over 14 months, I led the skills assessment, the job description rewrite, the operating-model proposal, and the principles workshop.